This is a whole new level of enshitification.
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2025
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Boring dystopia
As someone who lived in China for 7 years, the alternative is that the next best person who enters the bathroom takes all available paper home.
In my entire time there, I can count the number of times where paper was available on a single hand, with spare fingers.
Naturally, everybody carries a box of tissues at all times.
I've been told that China is so prosperous, why would there be no toilet paper‽
China is prosperous, don't let anybody fool you. But people are deeply, inherently selfish and love money more than everything (yay, communism!), so if they can save 30 cents by taking a roll of toilet paper home, they will.
Yes, certain people in China are prosperous no doubt
Waiting for .ml to tell me how this was all part of Mao's plan.
Or scrape my ass across their damned dispenser.
Fuck that noise.
How is this any different than Germany where oftentimes the entrance itself is behind a paywall?
Dropping in a coin vs what seems to be downloading some sort of an app or at least opening some shady websites on your fucking phone over your fucking mobile data is where I see it. Even if you used the payment option, you'd have to disclose your online payment information to the provider. Privacy nightmare.
Or simply imagine you just took your most violent shit of the century and then have an ad for hot mexican food or something.
The entrance being behind a paywall is bad, but if you're not aware of it before using the toilet this holds you hostage unable to get clean until you pay up, with either your money or your attention. I'd say this is a more evil design, even though both are evil.
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In Germany you're paying to access the bathroom, not the "privilege" of wiping your ass
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If their goal is to convince people to not wipe at all, this method will have some non-zero percent of success.
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Bring your own toilet paper?
Also China public bathrooms smell like absolute crap I have no idea why. I had to pee in China and walked into a public bathroom on the side of the road. I almost puked
Yeah, most people in china already bring their own. The only time I've ever seen it offered for free was in a crazy high end shopping mall.
Many are just 'squatty potties' - is a hole in the floor and a tank below.
And yah, tourists are told to bring TP already since some bathrooms don't have any.
😶
What do you mean by a tank below? For flushing or…?
All the squatty potties I encountered in Asia were plumbed the way a toilet in the US would be plumbed so the poop gets flushed elsewhere.
I hope the ones in China weren’t basically permanent porta potties….
It really varies. I just did a big tour of China in June and we saw many fancy, futuristic toilets in malls and hotels. We saw somewhat stinky but otherwise clean public toilets at parks and such. And we came across a couple of holes in the floor with a septic tank below ground, exposed to the air - and no TP provided. Those are rare now, from what I saw. (Septic tank was the word I couldn't think of before) I'm no plumber though so I may be getting that word wrong still.
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People kept stealing the toilet paper rolls. Poor elderly are notorious for this from what I heard
Ha! :) I never heard that before but that does make sense. I remember my American grandma hoarded supplies like this her whole life, long after the lean depression-era years she lived through. Every single pencil was used down to the nub. We got a serious talking-to if we tossed a milk bottle with more than a drop left in it.
Lmao if someone tried this shit in the US all the dispensors would be kicked off the walls by the end of the day.
Either that, or I will find something else to wipe my ass on. It's lose-lose for everybody really.
China is a whole other world than western countries. Having access to toilet paper, even paid access, in a public restroom is not common.
This is because of people stealing toilet paper out of public restrooms
https://www.vice.com/en/article/chinas-fighting-toilet-paper-thieves-with-facial-recognition/
Yo first line of that says that many public restrooms don’t have have TP at all and you need to bring your own. What the fuck even is that system to begin with?!
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I do NOT touch my phone after I start wiping.
I guess there would just be shit smeared on the walls of that stall.
how "capitalistic" of the "communists" lol.
He who does not work, shall not wipe.
- Владимир Ленин
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Oh ok flushes baby wipes.
Many countries have pay per use public restrooms. Sometimes there's someone sitting outside handing out toilet paper after you pay. Sometimes it a coin insert turnstile. Us oldsters call them Johnny Cash.
Just shit right under it on the floor to show your disagreement.
Basically almost a literal shitpost.
I don't like the ewaste tho.
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